


Fracture

by Tempest_Wind



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DC Animated Universe (Timmverse), DCU
Genre: Blood, Drama, Humor, Injury, Sibs from another crib, deep discussions, playful banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27130424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tempest_Wind/pseuds/Tempest_Wind
Summary: After a training session gone wrong, new recruit Tim Drake's injuries are treated by a grieving Barbara Gordon as she struggles to cope with loss while welcoming an insecure boy into the dysfunctional family.A light fic requested by a friend who wanted to see a sibling bond form between Tim and Barbara.
Kudos: 24





	Fracture

**Author's Note:**

> _Dedicated to Casper._
> 
> Warnings: contains descriptions of blood.

"Let me look at it."

"It's not broken."

"Okay, I'll be happy to confirm that when you let me _look_ at it," Barbara insisted as she herded Tim towards the medical bay of the Bat Cave. "Now sit."

He slumped down on the bench as she wheeled over the first aid cart. Every tendon in his body burned with an unsettling ache and the coppery stench of blood refused to leave his nostrils.

Tim focused on separating himself from the pain, on detaching from the sirens going off in his head so that he could focus on _doing_. Green eyes blinked into his vision and he jolted back with a wince.

"Do you have to be that close?" he muttered, pulling away.

"Your face is covered in blood, dude," she informed him, her gaze darting up. "Ugh gross. Some of it got in your hair."

With an alcohol-soaked cotton ball, she began dabbing along his cheek. The cool touch of the tonic was hypnotic until she reached an open wound: then it was fiery hell.

He winced hard and stomped his foot as his brain refused to communicate his pain properly.

"Oh, don't be such a baby, Mr. Its-not-broken," Barbara taunted. As the reddened cotton ball hovered near him, Tim flinched away. "Hold still!"

"Don't-!" Tim held her hand back.

Barbara relaxed her hold as she pinched her brows. "Tim, I'm not going to touch the cut again," she insisted. "I have to clean up around it though."

He tried to will himself to relax. "Right," he breathed out an unsteady sigh.

She pitched the cotton ball into the garbage and doused a fresh one in alcohol. Leaning in, she padded it along his other cheek as he tried not to flinch or fight back.

"I honestly thought you were good out there," she said. "You were really brave and had a lot of… creative moves."

"It was just training," he muttered.

"Yeahhh, and it probably will be for a while," she sighed. "You have to prove yourself to even get on Bruce's radar, then prove yourself again for him to consider training you, and then he spends the whole training time telling you about how sloppy you are and how you're not ready for field work."

Tim gave a snort that ached through the bridge of his nose as she cleaned the skin around his lips and chin. 

"Augh, gross, you snorted out a bunch of blood just now," she muttered. "You're like a blood factory."

"That's what bodies are, technically," he pointed out.

"Well, stop that," she said. "I'm trying to clean you up here."

"Okay," he said then slumped flat onto the bench, his eyes rolled back and his tongue lolling out for dramatic effect.

Despite her best efforts at maintaining her composure, Barbara snorted into a chuckle. Tim echoed back the sentiment, but choked against the bloody mucus clinging to his throat. He rushed upright and made a retching sound before swallowing back. 

"Ugh, that wasn't healthy," he croaked.

"Yeah maybe try playing dead while sitting up," she suggested before clicking on a tiny flashlight. She leaned as far down as possible and shone the flashlight up one nostril at a time.

"Whad does dat do?" he tried to say while his nose was occupied.

"No idea, but Alfred does that any time one of us gets a broken nose," she said, clicking off the flashlight to instead use it as a ruler against the sides of Tim's nose. "Maybe he's messing with us."

"Does he usually handle the injuries?" Tim asked.

"Yeah, but it's something we all learn how to do," she said. "Besides, whatever he's cooking right now, I don't want to interrupt. It smells so good. Can you smell the lemon from here?"

Tim raised a long-suffering brow at her. Her cheeks reddened.

"Sorry," she ground out. "Hey was your nose always this kind of bulbous in the middle here?"

Tim stiffened and reached for his nose. Barbara batted his hand away. 

"Dooon't touch it," she snapped. Squinting at his face, she made a negative sound in the back of her throat.

"I-is it bad?" Tim asked.

Barbara hissed in a breath and moved to stand like she was delivering unfortunate news to a family after a surgery gone wrong.

"I'm afraid you're going to need… a cast."

"A cast?" he repeated, his voice cracking with how incredulous the word seemed.

She nodded gravely. "A whole body cast," she said with a straight face.

"For my nose, _come on_ ," he said and she finally broke out into laughter. 

"It's a little swollen but it's already healing," she declared as she reached into the mini-fridge. A soft ice pack flew towards him and he caught it on instinct.

"Hold that to your nose until it stops being cold, then re-freeze it," she instructed. "Do it four times a day for a few days."

"Thanks," he murmured as she moved to leave, but a lingering thought left him sitting there. Barbara turned towards him, asking the silent question.

"Barbara…" he began, "do you think Batman's ever going to trust me?"

She hissed in breath between gritted teeth, and then sighed it out, leaning against the doorframe. Her eyes widened with a mix of worry and concern before pain creased the edges of her brows.

"As much as he's able to trust someone, he already trusts you," Barbara said. "I mean, he let you into his world. That's no small thing."

"I mean, as a sidekick," Tim insisted. "Do you think he'll ever see me as his equal?"

Barbara's gaze roved over the medical station as she tried not to dwell on Dick's parting words to Bruce. 

_"You only ever think of yourself," he snapped. "The only thing you care about is your damn ego."_

"No, no one is his equal," Barbara said and Tim sank where he sat. "It's not that he thinks he's better than everyone else. It's that he thinks he's expendable.

"But you?" she went on. "You'll never be expendable to him. Not ever." Her voice took a hardened edge, bitter with grief as she fought back the thoughts of Jason.

"Don't try to be his equal," Barbara said. "Just… try to be you. He'll learn to love who you really are, in his own way."

"Do you really think so?" the boy asked and for a moment, Barbara made herself take in just how young and vulnerable this kid was: a broken child who lost his home, his parents, and his entire way of life on one night barely a week ago. She wondered if that was the feeling Bruce sought out in others, that ebbing sense of loneliness and vulnerability that he covered with a literal mask.

"Yeah," Barbara said, approaching Tim to ruffle his hair. "Ugh," she muttered as she picked free a drying clump of blood from his hair. "You should probably shower before dinner or Alfred won't let you hear the end of it." She grabbed a handful of tissue and began ripping and rolling it into oblong balls. 

"Alfred's really strict, isn't he?" Tim asked, a nervous edge shaking its way through his voice. He took the offered tissue balls and delicately pushed them up each nostril.

"Alfred is really caring, but in a stiff, mother-hen way," Barbara explained. "Bruce is… he's a difficult guy to read, and isn't exactly warm and comforting. But I guess that's why you have me around."

"Heh, I take it you're fluent in Bruce?" he teased as he moved to stand.

"Mmm, I wouldn't say fluent," she replied, scrunching her nose. "But Alfred is an excellent tutor, and I speak enough Bruce to get by."

"Do you think I can take it as my language course when I transfer to Gotham Academy?" Tim asked as they left the room, making their way up the winding staircase.

"Those credits won't transfer to college, but we'll see what we can do," Barbara teased as they followed the scent of lemons upstairs. Once the door slid shut behind them, the lights in the Batcave clicked off, bathing the room in darkness.


End file.
